Sunday Stress

When I was a teacher in the classroom, Sunday's were predictable. I would spend the day at school working on my classroom, making copies, getting things ready for the week. It was a way to work through the nervous energy that rippled through me as I psyched myself up for the trials and tribulations that a week teaching high school students brings. I loved teaching. I loved the challenge. I loved the laughs. But eventually, the stress got the better of me. It was time to try something new.

Moving into the non-profit world I found my hours increased by leaps and bounds. Hard to imagine that I could work more having come from the classroom - but it is true. 60 hour weeks and year round schedules. I think the difference is in the year round part. Being a teacher, you pace yourself like a runner. You know you have to get a certain distance over a certain time period. You take breaks for water but you plug on through. The transition from one world to the year round world required me to rethink my pace. The first few summers were hard. I always worked through the summer as a teacher at the community college but it had the highs and lows of a new job and that was an adrenaline rush in itself.

Having been at this job now almost 7 years in June, I have the pacing down. But it is the travel recovery before and after that gets me. I love to travel. I have always enjoyed the trips I take for work. Adventures in networking with new colleagues. Nothing better than traveling back East to the PBS mothership :) But, along with travel comes a hangover. Not from drinking too much, but from jet lag, from the intensity that comes with being "on" almost 16 or 18 hours a day and worrying about all the happenings at home that I should be there for. They are fine at home. I have a great home team. But it doesn't stop the worry.

I'm back now after almost a week away. 3 nights is my maximum in good conscience. 4 full days. I think that might have been when I spent all day Friday with a migraine. Stress hangover? Hard to gear up then for all the events in the days to follow. I know it may sound silly. But preschool graduation, mom's birthday, the twin's birthday, a major work event at the Zoo later in the week where I facilitate the program, and then the last day of school and organizing all the presents for teachers are enough to make me want to go back to bed and not get up until next week. All this on top of voicemails and non-urgent emails I let await me until I returned to work this week. Xanex anyone?

I'll default to my best strategy. My best strategy is to put my head down. Focus on one event at a time and not think too hard about the rest until one is accomplished. Then, on to the next. Prayer works well too. I need to turn it over instead of just lament it. Breathing always helps. Maybe a few yoga stretches. Its only 10 am on Sunday. Plenty of time for me to deploy my strategies. All those, and a few slip n slide trips with my kids in my parents' backyard should be the perfect remedy.

There is a science to all this - happiness and stress and anxiety you know. I'll leave you with this thought I found...

The answer lies in the pie chart theory of happiness. Recall that 50 percent of individual differences in happiness are governed by genes, 10 percent by life circumstances, and the remaining 40 percent by what we do and how we think?that is, our intentional activities and strategies. The secret of course lies in that 40 percent.
~ Sonja Lyubomirsky "Get Control of your Happiness"

In the meantime, I find a way to peek at those emails and check voicemail later today. A pre-emptive strike on my week ahead. Hopefully I can squeeze in some Hooing too in SL. A few deep breaths in and out... and I'm off!

Waiting... (not to be confused with watching the clock)

So much of our lives are spent waiting. Waiting in traffic, waiting for appointments in a medical or dental office, waiting for someone to call, waiting for whatever is coming next. Waiting for the tax refund (Hoo!).

I continually find myself possessed with the teacher syndrome when I wait. I bet some of you have it too – even though you are not teachers. It is the syndrome that causes you spontaneously to launch into multitask mode. Waiting is a particular state that drives me to it like no other.

While I’m waiting, I better bring 5 things to do in the orthodontist office because, heck, I might even get them all done. Now really, just while my son gets his routine checkup at the orthodontist done and they replace one bracket – can I really respond to all my morning email on my blackberry, complete some online work (if they have wireless – which unfortunately they don’t), work on a blog entry, AND read my latest Oprah Magazine? Good lord – how LONG is that appointment? You would have thought I was heading to the airport on a business trip!

What I have decided is that SL is so damn appealing because there is never any waiting – really, truly. I mean sure there is waiting for an event to start because there has to be parameters of organization. But, while you are waiting, you can go shop, build something, chit chat it up, dance, drive, fly, turn yourself into several other avatar shapes and sizes human and otherwise. It is the ULTIMATE non-waiting experience. It allows us to be impatient in our waiting and have fun in the process.

Ok – while I’m typing this in WORD because I can’t get online (geesh am I being IMPATIENT?) the cute gal from the front desk comes out to open up the blinds in the waiting room and says – what a cute laptop. It is cute – it sucks on SL – but it is cute nonetheless. I ask her if there is wireless and she says – no I sure wish though. I’ll ask Dr. Cain about that – you’re not the first patient parent to ask about that. Hooooo! So… maybe it is worth to ask. I’ll keep you posted. But I digress (you should know by now to expect that from me - heehee)...

Anyway – back to waiting. Recently as I have gone to full sims for events I have noticed a distinct waiting factor in SL. Rezzzzzzzzzzing. Gray people surround me. Half formed images appear. I am horribly ruthed (newbie hair and ugly shape) and must edit my appearance and hope I appear “normally” soon. But the BEST experience I have had waiting for all of SL to magically appear correct has been when I teleport into the newest Jazz club on SL – Savoy. The TP landing spot is set on the beach – in between velvet entry ropes – just as an RL club or venue would have set for you to wait patiently to enter. Others TP in there too and you find yourself rezzing in a sort of line. While waiting to get in – actually waiting to rez – I had a friend even ask me – geesh –is there a line to get in here? It was kinda cool. It heightened my interest in the experience and most definitely my anticipation.

Ultimately I guess sometimes it is important to slow down, breathe and just enjoy the waiting as an act in and of itself. (yea right, kim, take your own advice would ya?) Sometimes waiting is a chance to just sit, just be, just enjoy not doing ANYTHING. And… ironically… I find that it doesn’t kill me. I find new thoughts flit through my brain. I find myself feeling creative. I enjoy just being. Life goes so fast. If I hurry up and use up all the space designed to allow me to pause, or wait, I might miss that space and something happening that could come positively from that waiting.

So… note to self… enjoy the fact that I have to work on this blog the “old school way” in Word. Enjoy the fact that I can’t get on SL and run around crazily spending lindens in an early morning shopping frenzy. Enjoy the fact that my first baby boy is now 12 – a saucy pre-teen who still loves his mom and is becoming a handsome sweet young man who will have beautiful teeth – even if it costs me an arm and a leg and means I have to wait for him.